Digital electronics have proliferated into application areas that previously used analog signal communication. For example, rather than communicate analog signals from a transducer, designers sometimes digitize the signal, and communicate the resulting digital signal to another circuit, such as a processor, microcontroller unit (MCU), etc. Similarly, rather than drive a transducer an analog signal, one may in some cases use digital signals. The electronics in the transducer process and use the digital signal, as appropriate.
The proliferation of digital signal communication has also given rise to several considerations. Circuits in individual systems or subsystems, or sometimes circuits in even the same system or subsystem, can use different supply voltages. Similarly, circuits can use different digital logic families or different voltage levels. Furthermore, noise and interference can sometimes make it more difficult to properly communicate digital signals. For example, in the presence of noise, a digital logic 1 signal might experience corruption, resulting in the receiving circuit to interpret it as a logic 0 signal, or even as an indeterminate signal.